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Forum:2018-07-16 (Monday)
Discussion for comic for . Working on your Doctorate in Mad Science? Consider making Girl Genius your dissertation topic. ---- Harumph. We don't really believe, do we, that this is all news to Trelawney? But yes, yes, I agree with you, a much more interesting question is why it isn't news to Gil! Presumably because Klaus knows. Firsthand? Did Lucrezia send him through one and then break the network so he couldn't easily come back? But no, the timing is way off; Gil's mother is an ordinary-lifespan queen, right? Not an immortal one? So if Albia really didn't know that, the mirrors must have stopped working before Klaus came to Skifander. (Okay, if Lucrezia can travel through time it's barely possible.) Also, just how did Klaus introduce the subject, without telling Gil about his mother? And why? Oh, and, do we believe Moonbark that the entire network is now broken? But at least the one in Mechanicsburg still worked recently. Well, the fact that the last panel is in sepia suggests that we'll hear more of the story next time. Bkharvey (talk) 06:38, July 16, 2018 (UTC) :Klaus wasn't the only source of information for Gil. He had other tutors and studied in Paris (and possibly other places). Argadi (talk) 10:21, July 16, 2018 (UTC) ::Not to mention that as the new Baron, Gil would have had access to all of Klaus' notes. As for why some work and others do not, I would presume that the Hetrodynes figured it out to a limited degree at some point in the past. 'Black' Victor Cachat (talk) 14:11, July 16, 2018 (UTC) :: I suppose, although lots of people study in Paris and yet Moonbark is surprised that Gil knows about them. Bkharvey (talk) 20:03, July 16, 2018 (UTC) Oops, I didn't notice the globe. Lots to think about there, especially the large body of land to the left of Africa. Are we going to learn that that's Atlantis? And what about the glowing dots, presumably mirror sites, south of there, seemingly in the middle of the ocean? They're too far north to be Antarctica, given the position of South America on the globe. (Yes, I understand that this isn't exactly Earth and we can't make firm assumptions about the geography. But even just on the globe those two mirrors seem to be in mid-ocean. Although there's a water site below Florida that I suppose could be Haiti or Cuba or something, so maybe those other two are islands also. (I'm terrible at geography.)) Bkharvey (talk) 06:48, July 16, 2018 (UTC) :My guess would be that the mystery land mass is Atlantis. Whatever it is, I wonder if it is still in existence. If it is Atlantis, then perhaps it is as submerged in the Girl Genius universe at the time the story takes place as it is supposed (by some people, at least) to be in ours. My thought here is that the globe itself is also very old, but I have no particular reason to think so. -- William Ansley (talk) 17:44, July 16, 2018 (UTC) Aargh, why am I still awake? Anyway, on this globe South America looks way smaller than North America. That's also how it looks in the Mercator projection traditionally used in flat maps of the world in northern hemisphere societies, but not true on the actual Earth, and globes get the areas right. Is this ignorance on the Foglios' part, or is it deliberate, to indicate Eurocentrism in Europan culture, or just careless drawing? And does the red dotted line mean anything? It doesn't pass through Greenwich Observatory. :-) Bkharvey (talk) 07:59, July 16, 2018 (UTC) :The globe is turned to one side, & SA is obscured by the Professor's hand. You make too much of it. Bosda Di'Chi (talk) 13:05, July 16, 2018 (UTC) :My guess would be the dotted line is the barrier (whatever it is..) that's currently keeping people in Europa from going to America. --Geoduck42 (talk) 16:53, July 16, 2018 (UTC) ::Good guess. I like it! I hope we will find out if you are right at some point soon. -- William Ansley (talk) 17:44, July 16, 2018 (UTC) ::People in Europa can't go to America? I read the wiki article about it, but the that allegedly says this actually just has Agatha using it as an example of something that would be interesting to hear about. Europans don't go to Africa routinely either, but they could if they didn't mind a long trip. Is there a better source for it being impossible to get to America? Bkharvey (talk) 20:03, July 16, 2018 (UTC) ::: Very early on, in Beetlesburg, as Agatha is rushing to the university, there's this comment from a passerby: "-coming around looking for volunteers for Professor Vogel's latest attempt to reach the ''Americas. ''Now do I look stupid?" Along with the Agatha quote you mention, this gives the strong impression that for whatever reason, getting to the Americas is currently not easy or safe. It was at least possible at one point, The Heterodyne Boy's adventure-companion Thundering Engine Woman came from there, and evidently went back. But yes, I am making some guesses and speculations. And it should be noted we have absolutely no idea how easy or hard it is to get to Africa, or how much travel there is between it and Europa: Embi and his tale is literally the only mention of the continent so far in the story. (Tho there are certainly lots of people around who seem to be of African descent..) --Geoduck42 (talk) 23:49, July 16, 2018 (UTC) Why was a Great Society of Queens gate in the Red Cathedral? This is covered in the Red Cathedral, but we know more about the gates now. There should probably be separate pages for the society of queens (what did Albia call it?) and for the gates/gate network. Argadi (talk) 09:53, July 17, 2018 (UTC) : My guess/prediction is that the gate was already there, and the Cathedral got built around it. --Geoduck42 (talk) 15:36, July 17, 2018 (UTC) :: Albia didn't call it anything; she just talked about a connection to Skifander. If (as I guess we're all assuming) the green dots on the globe are Mirror sites, then there are four or five of them in Europa, and Albia presumably knows that there aren't any immortal queens there, so she shouldn't have been surprised that there isn't one in Skifander either. I'm having trouble fitting Moonbark's version and Albia's version into one coherent story. ➤ ::: Right, I went back and Albia just calls them and the queen "our sister" on the same page. :: I guess we really need to start thinking about who/what broke the network, and why. (Perhaps it'll turn out that the secret to immortality involves regular doses of clotted cream, or steak and kidney pie, or something, and breaking the mirror network killed all the non-English queens. ☺) It's tempting, isn't it, to wonder whether the Other predates Lucrezia, and just took her over as she attempted to take Agatha over. If there's been an Other for a kiloyear or so, he/she/it would be a good candidate for the breaker of the network. (And, yeah, it could also be Lucrezia going back in time.) Bkharvey (talk) 20:17, July 17, 2018 (UTC) ::: Speaking of the network broke, I had though Albia was at Agatha's trip taking 2 1/2 years, but she might have been shocked that a mirror worked at all. ➤ ::: Speaking of the Other, I personally read an old Other into . The Eternal Lady (The Other} always came in the "same lovely aspect" when Vrin "was a novice". My extrapolation is that in previous (irregular) visits "since the beginning of all things" she hadn't always had the same aspect. In other words, the Other kept changing bodies through the centuries. Argadi (talk) 21:16, July 17, 2018 (UTC) :::: I wonder how literally we are meant to take the picture at the top of that page. It looks like a woman with two left arms being swallowed and sniffed by Dumbo the flying elephant. Bkharvey (talk) 21:53, July 17, 2018 (UTC) ::::: She's holding a baby in her arms, whose long hair merges with her own. Another possibility with the "unchanging" Other is that she was using time-travel to trick the Geisters into thinking she was immortal. That would explain the "fraud" charge that Zola levels when confronting Lu-in-Agatha. ----Geoduck42 (talk) 22:23, July 17, 2018 (UTC) ::: I have a hunch that it's going to turn out to be tied, at least in part, to the current timestop in Mechanicsburg. Bear in mind that the Take-Five Bomb went off Tweedle dragged Agatha & Co. through the Mechanicsburg mirror, which caused their much-delayed arrival in the Refuge of Storms, whereupon the RoS portal . There's also the earlier incident with the Sturmhalten portal being destroyed . On the next page, Vrin claims that Milvistle was responsible for destroying that portal along with Lucrezia's plans, but since we later learn that Milvistle wound up with the Malfeazium family for years before Vrin apparently caught up with her, I take that allegation with a grain of salt. Either way, the fact that the Mechanicsburg mirror is still active within the timestop could theoretically cause the destructive effects to ripple backward in time far enough to have disrupted the mirror network long before Lucrezia apparently chucked Klaus through her own (or her father's?) homebrew mirror to Skifander on the assumption that he'd never be able to find his way home. (I'm ramblin_rosie on LJ; not signing up for a Wiki account because I'm not planning to remain active here.) 22:06, July 17, 2018 (UTC) :::: I like your thoughts. I'm sorry you aren't going to stick around. ➤ :::: We have one group of gates (the queen's mirrors and the compatible Refuge of Storms device). The may be part of that system or compatible with the system, or some different network. (I'd guess at least compatible.) There's also the semi-canonical which, again, could be compatible or some other system. Argadi (talk) 00:30, July 18, 2018 (UTC)